"That doesn’t prove he was peddling the info this time. It still could’ve been McCallum."
Still talking about her in the third person. She was really getting tired of that.
"Dodge had an ongoing relationship with Myron Levine," Tess said as calmly as possible. "And Dodge knew everything I knew."
"How convenient for you."
"What are you saying? That I’m trying to pin the blame on a dead man?"
"Who knows what you might try when your career’s on the line?"
"God, you’re such a prick."
He ignored her, as usual. "As far as I’m concerned, McCallum remains an unreliable member of this investigative team."
She wouldn’t let this pass. "Sometimes I think I’m the only member of the team who’s doing any actual investigating. In case you’ve forgotten, I got you Hayde’s license plate and directed you to the Metro. I practically handed you Mobius on a platter-"
"You did?" The Nose glared past her, refusing to meet her eyes. "Then where is he, McCallum? If you’ve handed him to us, why don’t we have him?"
Andrus held up a stern hand. " Enough. Agent McCallum is back on the case. Period. And for the record, Tess," he added, "I apologize for jumping to conclusions. I made a mistake. I’m sorry."
The Nose made a low sound signifying disapproval and turned away.
When Tess looked back, the Metro train had receded into the distance. Its headlights cast only a dim glow. The lights of the station platform were entirely gone, hidden behind the curving wall of concrete and rock.
"How far are we planning to go, anyway?" Michaelson asked.
Tess thought the Nose was in an awful hurry to give up the chase. Probably didn’t like being in the dark. She hoped he wet his pants.
"Until we find some indication he’s been here," Andrus said. "Shoe prints or something."
"Not a sign of him so far," Tess said. She’d been expecting the tunnel to be strewn with litter from tunnel workers-gum wrappers, cigarette butts, soda cans-but it was surprisingly clean. Other than some scattered papers blown off the platform by the draft of passing trains, the circle of her flashlight beam had picked up nothing but the train tracks, the dangerous third rail, and the small metallic heads of the automatic sprinklers installed between the tracks.
They walked on. Now the train was lost to sight, and only their flashlights provided illumination. It was like exploring a cave, but a curiously artificial cave of unchanging dimensions, a cave that stretched forever into the darkness.
Still no indication that anyone had passed this way. Maybe no one had. She could have been wrong.
Andrus got on the radio to the other search team. They had found nothing. The tunnel’s dirt floor south of the parked train seemed undisturbed.
"We’re wasting our time," Michaelson groused.
Andrus looked at Tess. "How about it? Keep going or turn back?"
"Since when is it my call?"
"Since you’re the one who came up with this idea."
"Fair enough." She let the pale oval of her flashlight beam drift over the walls. "If he’s in here, he could be a mile away by now. Or he might have exited via a maintenance access tunnel. I guess we should head back."
It felt like the right choice. But she wished she could be sure.
Tess and the others were retracing their steps, nearing the platform, when Michaelson said, "Hold on."
He beamed his flashlight into the gully between the rails. Among the sprinkler heads, its beam picked out something small and shiny, something that could not have lain there long without being caked in grit.
He and Tess and Andrus gathered around the find, while the patrol cops watched the shadows, wary of a surprise attack.
Three flashlight beams centered on the object. It was a cuff link-silver border, black pearl inset.
Hayde’s cuff link. The one that had winked at Tess so insistently during his interrogation.
"Recognize it?" Michaelson said.
"Yes," Tess answered. "It’s his. He did come this way."
They looked toward the darkness at their backs.
"So unless he’s found a way out," Andrus said, "he’s in there somewhere."
"Like a fucking spider in his hole." The voice belonged to Tennant, emerging from the train a few yards away.
"Spiders have webs," Michaelson said, "not holes."
"I was referring to the trapdoor spider. One of the only deadly breeds in North America." He glanced at Tess and shared a smile with her.
"No secondary devices?" she asked.
"None. But the one he installed would’ve been enough to take out half the passengers-maybe more."
"And he’s still got plenty of VX left."
"But he won’t use it." Tennant stared down the tunnel. "My boys from DC just arrived. We’ll go in and get him."
"SWAT can do that," Andrus said.
"When they get here, they can help. We’re going first."
"You’ll need hazmat suits."
"Nah." Tennant patted his vest. "Just big noisy guns."
"Guns won’t help you if he gets close enough to douse you with that stuff."
"He won’t get that close." Tennant’s face was hard. "Count on it."
Tess believed him.
40
Tess was surprised how quickly things were wrapped up at the station.
It was agreed that Tennant and his men would work their way deeper into the tunnel in the direction Hayde had gone. SWAT teams from the FBI and LAPD would enter the tunnel at other access points, then seal off all known means of egress. The tunnel continued in an essentially straight line to the North Hollywood station-NoHo, to the locals-and that station, as well as the Universal City depot, was now under police lockdown. There were no stations after that. NoHo was the end of the line.
Somewhere under the earth, between Universal City and NoHo, Hayde would be found. Then the only question was how he would choose to handle this final crisis. He could surrender or fight. If he fought, he would use whatever he had left of the VX. In the confined space of the tunnel, with limited access to outside air, he would have an ideal environment in which to release the nerve agent.
Unless, of course, he was already out of the tunnels. He could have escaped via a maintenance passageway, stolen a car and gone…anywhere.
And if he was out there, roaming loose, he might not be found or stopped in time.
This was the thought that flicked at her, rough as a lizard’s tongue, as she took the entrance ramp of the Santa Monica Freeway, heading for the ATSAC command center, where the crisis managers were again gathering.
The cell phone in her handbag buzzed. She answered it out of habit: "McCallum."
"Who is this?" a female voice asked.
Tess remembered that the phone had belonged to Dodge. "Sorry," she said. "This is FBI Agent Tess McCallum. I’m an associate of Detective Dodge-"
"Of course. Agent McCallum. I met you in Radiology. This is Rachel Winston."
The pathologist. "Hello, Doctor."
"You screening Jim’s calls?"
"Something like that." She changed the subject. "Working late?"
"Emergency hours-because of the, uh, well, the emergency. You know, you could’ve shared more info with me."
"I was under orders to keep quiet."
"Well, it’s all over the media now. Anyway, I finally got that information Dodge was looking for. Maybe you can pass it on to him?"
"Will do," Tess said, hoping Winston didn’t pick up on the catch in her voice.
"The antemortem X rays from Scott Maple’s dentist came through. I’ve just had a chance to make a comparison, and I can say definitively that the body from the chem lab is not that of Mr. Maple."
"Wait a minute. Is not?"
"No question about it. You can have a forensic dentist double-check the results, if you want, but I guarantee my conclusion will hold up. There are no significant similarities between the teeth on Scott Maple’s films and the teeth I radiographed this afternoon."